Government outlines digital rights agency proposal

Friday 13 March 2009 13.06 EDT
First published on Friday 13 March 2009 13.06 EDT

The government today fleshed out the digital rights agency proposed in Lord Carter's Digital Britain report and called for comment from the industry and consumers.

The agency would establish a co-regulatory approach for navigating online copyright issues for film and music content, including illegal file sharing.

"Consumers are no longer prepared to be told when and where they can access the content that they want," the discussion paper said.

"They do not see why a TV show that is airing in the US should not be available in the UK. They are not willing to wait to see a film at home until several months after it has passed through the cinemas. They don't accept the logic that says that if you have bought a CD you cannot then copy that music onto your iPod. And of course with digital content perfect copies can be made with very little time and at virtually no cost."

David Lammy, minister of state for intellectual property, said the rights agency could be a real step forward.

"The real prize here is a rights agency that sorts out the complexities that keep consumers on the right side of the law, and ensure artists get properly paid," Lammy said.

Lord Carter, the minister for technology, communications and broadcasting, warned earlier in the week that if everyone "torched" the straw man it would be a sign that the industry did not have enough commonality for a co-regulatory approach to work, in which case the government would either introduce comprehensive legislation or abandon the industry to its fate.

Today he added: "Britain's creative industries are respected and admired the world over and are hugely important to our national competitiveness. But in the new digital age, copyright infringement has become easier and more socially acceptable, so it's clear we need some form of legislative backstop for the protection of rights as well as new and innovative ways to access legal content."

The paper covers how to change consumer behaviour and deal with persistent breaches of civil copyright law, how to support industry efforts in developing new and attractive legal ways for consumers to access content, how to enable technical copyright-support solutions that work for both consumers and content creators, and whether the agency should have back-up legal powers held by Ofcom and how it should be funded.

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